Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (62 page)

A single sound rose above the alarm tone.  It was a
horse screaming in pain.  All heads jerked to see it rearing, an arrow shaft
imbedded in one flank.  The protruding shaft could not be the executioner’s
arrow because of the differently colored fletching.

Unknowns inhabited the night.  The horse had moved so
suddenly that no one could tell exactly where the shot had come from.

Still screaming, the horse leapt forward.  Marik was
yanked upward at painful speed.  Before he could start his own terrified yell,
the rope snapped high up in the branch where its burning friction forced it to
fray against the rough bark.

Marik plummeted headfirst to the ground.  He barely
got his hands in front of himself in time.  The jarring impact was made no less
so by the soft ground.  For a moment he feared his arms had snapped as cleanly
as the rope.  His breath was knocked clean from him, leaving him motionless in
the dirt, stunned by the impact.

The alarm cut off.  Mendell was shouting loudly. 
Instants stretched into eternal moments, the grains in Time’s sandglass growing
to mountainous proportions.  Alien buzzing filled his ears while he fought to
breathe.

Abruptly, the camp was still.  He found the strength
to raise his head.  Everyone had gone.  Xenos, Mendell, every last
black-armored soldier…gone.  Off to capture the new intruder same as they had
captured the mercenaries.

Marik rolled onto his back to look up at Dietrik.  His
friend still dangled like a cocoon.  “Mate, are you—”

A yelp escaped Dietrik when his own rope severed as
Marik’s had without warning.  Dietrik landed with a bit less force.

“All you all right?” Marik frantically called.  “What
happened?  Why did you fall?”  He cast his gaze up into the branches.

His soul froze anew when, high up in the tree, he
discerned a shadowy figure darting back along the thick branch.  It moved like
a squirrel, bouncing back and forth from branch to branch, already moving
before it barely had the chance to touch the limb it bounded from.

It was coming down the tree.  Here it was at last! 
One of the forest’s spirit denizens.  An imp, a demonling, a voracious monster
intent on feeding.

“Dietrik!  Get up!  Get up now!  We have to leave!”

“I can’t…I’m trying to…”

Dietrik struggled with the straps around his ankles. 
Marik bent and furiously pulled at his own.  The damned Arronaths used a
buckling system that no
sane
person would ever hassle with.  He couldn’t
figure out which latches unfastened which parts—

The Taurs roared their hunting cry.  Gods, the
Arronaths must have gone in the direction the white-robes had set their own
small camp.  Xenos or Mendell must have roused them to add their strength to
the hunt.

“Dietrik!  We have to go!  Now!  We have to—”

A callused hand closed firmly over his.  Into his ear
came a soft voice that said, “Mage.  Move your hands aside and allow me.”

Marik stared with disbelief into Colbey’s face.

Colbey held his long steel knife in one hand.  He
pushed Marik’s fumbling hands away and slashed the straps in a single motion. 
Without delay he moved to Dietrik.

Marik rose shakily to his feet.  He stared
unbelievingly at Colbey while the scout gave Dietrik a hand up.  “W-where did
you
co—”

“There is no time,” Colbey declared.  “Follow me.  The
invaders will return quickly when they realize the trick I played on them.  If
you are to live you must escape at once.”

“I can agree with that,” Dietrik replied with all the
warmth of an ornery wolverine.

Colbey nodded.  He cast a fast glance in the Taurs’
direction.  With the speed Marik remembered, he dashed sideways.  His knife
flashed in the firelight.  An eye blink later, the Galemaran man lay on his
log, his throat severed to the bone.  “There is nothing else we can do for
him.  Now quickly!  This way!”

Marik met Dietrik’s gaze.  He read the worry writ there. 
But staying where they were was unthinkable.  They only had time to snatch up
their weapon belts before plunging into the dark trees after Colbey, leaving
their packs behind.

The firelight faded at their backs.  Colbey’s head
spun nonstop, searching the darkness with his formidable scouting skills. 
Marik could not hold his burning questions in abeyance.

“Damn it all, where in the hells did
you
come
from, Colbey?  I thought you must be dead!”

The scout kept silent, pushing them at the fastest
pace these non-woodsmen could manage.

“How did you ever find us?”

“That was simplicity,” Colbey chose to answer.  “Do
you see the stars?”

They followed his pointing finger.  Dietrik snapped,
“How in a bloody god’s mercy could anyone see the stars through these trees?”

“Exactly.  The forest canopy is solid this deep into
the woods.  Noise as loud as the din you invoked carries for untold miles
underneath it.  Further than you might imagine.”

“A stroke of bloody luck you were camping next door
then, is it?”

“No.  I was on the move.  I came to investigate the
noise.”

“On the move where?” Marik wanted to know.

Colbey fell silent.

Marik tried a different tack.  “Colbey, let’s go a
different direction.  We’ve cleared their camp.  This way is taking us deeper
into the forest.”

“Yes.”

“Well, we are already too far in for my tastes!  I
want to get out while the forest still lets me!”

“If you turn back, the Taurs will track your scent. 
You will be unable to hide from them.”

“We can…do what we have to!  We can deal with the Taurs!”

“Once the Taurs begin to hunt, they are tireless. 
They will pursue you until you drop from exhaustion, but they will most likely
capture you before you run so far.”  He stopped spinning his head to look over
his shoulder at Marik.  “As long as you remain with me, nothing in the Rovasii
will harm you.”

“This forest is
haunted
, Colbey!”

“Only those who do not belong run afoul of its
inhabitants.”

“Perhaps,” Dietrik observed sourly.  “But I’m
concerned about you more than a bleeding tommy living under a rock!”

Marik held his breath.  A comment like that was bound
to set Colbey off.

Instead, the scout met Dietrik’s gaze as levelly as he
had Marik’s.  “I understand.”

Dietrik blinked.  Much of the edged wariness melted
from his bearing.  Before Marik could ask the next question, the Taurs voiced
their bloodlust to the night.

“We move,” Colbey announced.  “Quickly.”

Over the next ten minutes they could tell the beasts
were tracking them.  Their howls grew closer through the darkness.  What had
Colbey said?  They tracked by scent?  How could they possibly evade the
monsters and their white-robed masters if that was true?

“We’ll never be able to lose them like this!” Marik
gasped.

“We shall not need to.”

“Do you expect you can slaughter the lot like sheep?”
Dietrik wheezed.

Marik shook his head in the inky blackness.  “Both of
us together could never ta
uupphh
!”

“Mate?”

“Stop,” Colbey ordered Dietrik in time.  Marik peeled
himself off the wall he had run face-first into.

“What…by the gods…is
this
?”  One arm clutched
his torso.  The impact had finally been too much for his tender ribs.  They
were throbbing again.  His other hand probed the wooden barrier.

“It is a Euvea root.”

“How can something this dashed large be a root?” 
Dietrik asked.

“I’ve heard of this.  Colbey, this is bad!  We’re at
the heart of the Rovasii.”

“Climb up onto the top of the root.”

“
What
?”

“Mate, budge on up already!  We’ve got demons dogging
our hides, and right pissed off ones at that!”

“But the heart is the one place where you are
guaranteed
to run afoul of the forest!”

“Mage, you will come to no harm with me.”

The terrible howl sounded far closer than before. 
Marik scrambled to climb the massive root.  He moaned, “Oh, this is never going
to end!”

Once atop the root, Colbey directed them to run along
it.  The root became an odd sort of roadway, and strangely far smoother than
many paths Marik had walked before.  After a moment they reached a point where
the root burrowed into a cluster under several others.  Colbey pointed them to
a new one which they scaled.

The odd terrain apparently confused the Taurs.  They
could hear the beasts falling behind the longer they ran along the massive
roots.

At one point the ground leveled off.  Earth had filled
the spaces between so they could run without the balanced precision the exposed
roots demanded.  They continued to run deeper into the Euvea trees.  Marik’s
cold sweat increased the further they went.

Colbey abruptly halted without warning a few minutes
later.  They had reached a place where two massive trees grew in such close
proximity that the space between was reduced to a narrow corridor.  A slight
break in the canopy allowed a single shaft of moonlight to illuminate the
space.

Dietrik barked, “What is the trouble?  I can hear the
Taurs running up behind us!”

“You can go no further into the Euvea from this
point.  The trees will deny your passage.”

“This is it!” Marik groaned.  “We’ve finally come too
far in!  It will kill us as surely as Xenos would have.”

“The Euvea groves will not attack you.”

“Then let’s get moving instead of having a lie-in!”

Dietrik ran into the corridor.  Colbey made no move to
follow.

“Hey!  Dietrik!” Marik shouted.  “Don’t go in there! 
You have no idea what might be waiting for you!  Come back!  Come—oh.  Good. 
Don’t hare off like that!”

Dietrik came running back out of the corridor between
the trees.  He skidded to a stop in the dirt while blinking rapidly in
confusion.  “Barking mad!  How did…”

He furrowed his eyebrows in determination, spun and
ran back into the dark space.

“Where are you going?  Dietrik?”

Colbey walked to the left Euvea trunk.  “Be calm.  He
will return.”

True to his word, only moments later, Dietrik came
running back out of the darker corridor.  As before he slid across the loose
earth while abruptly halting.

“What are you doing?”

Dietrik returned Marik’s questioning expression with
puzzled anger.  “That can’t be a winding path!  I never turned off the straight
and true!”  He rounded on Colbey.  “What sort of diseased prank is this?”

“It is a sealed area.  Space on the edge is twisted. 
You will never be able to enter on your own.  It will turn you back the way you
came each time.”

“Why did you lead us here, then?  A dead end?  May as
well throw out a picnic blanket in a box canyon, cover us with marinade and
invite the bloody Taurs to lunch!”

A hint of the old Colbey broke through the surface; a
single ember of smoldering annoyance.  “I will take you through the seal!  But
mark me well, outlanders.  This is a sealed area with second level dangers.  It
is, by far, not the worst, but it is dangerous enough for the unwary.  Listen
to every word I speak, follow every instruction I give you.  Touch nothing at
all without my say so!  Otherwise it will cost you worse than your life.  Death
is an easy escape from many of the fates that lie within the seals.”

“What are you talking about?” Marik cried out.  The
nervous fear in his voice shamed him.

Colbey placed both hands on the trunk’s bark.  The
mercenaries huddled closer.

“What is he doing?” Dietrik whispered.

“I don’t know, but at this point there is no use in
hiding.”  He concentrated and formed his etheric orb.  The light crackled. 
They could see the bark, leaves, pebbles, dirt, twigs which must actually be
mere splinters shed by the enormous trees…

The far end of the corridor remained shrouded in
blackness.  Marik strained to see until an odd glow from the side made him jerk
his attention back to Colbey.  Between the scout’s palms, a green circular
patch glowed within the wood.

“That…that’s an aura!  Dietrik, can you see it?”

“Yes.  Damnation, what is he up to?”

“I don’t know.  But that’s what an aura looks like. 
Or rather, it usually covers the entire tree.  I don’t understand this.”

“Mate!  Look!”

Dietrik pointed at the corridor.  In the space between
the trunks, an unnatural rippling effect expanded.  As if a child had tossed a
pebble into a still pond.  Except the surface of the water was actually the
corridor’s mouth.  The ground, vegetation…everything beyond the opening had
been reduced to an artist’s canvas.  A canvas being shook from all corners as
concentric rings expanded from the center.